Studio Apartment for Rent in Metro Vancouver

What we’d expect it to ask

$1,642 / month

8 times in ten the answer lands between $1,263 and $2,082. That is the width of what we actually know, measured against listings this model had never seen — not a margin we chose.

Asking $1,230 is $412 below that — further below than the ±9.8% we can put down to our own error. On size and location alone, it asks less than its neighbours do.

Asks less than we’d expect

What moves that number

Each line is the difference this one thing makes, holding everything else where it is. They do not add up to the rent.

Location

No SkyTrain station within walking distance, about 47 min to Waterfront.

Scored from the map pin alone — rapid transit, town centres and parks, in straight lines. It knows nothing about the street, the hill, the building or the neighbours, and buses and the SeaBus are not in it, so places served by those score lower here than they deserve.

What the estimate cannot see

Floor, view, condition, noise and everything inside the walls are missing from all but a handful of the advertisements we index, so none of them are priced in above. Two identical floor plans, one renovated and one not, get the same estimate from us.

This one is unusually forthcoming. It does state:

Worth reading — but too rare across the feed for us to put a number on.

The advertisement doesn’t say, and it matters:

• What floor is it on?
• Which way does it face?